“On a plat of rising groundI hear the far off Curfew sound,Over some wide watered shore,Swinging slow with solem roar.”
“On a plat of rising groundI hear the far off Curfew sound,Over some wide watered shore,Swinging slow with solem roar.”
“On a plat of rising groundI hear the far off Curfew sound,Over some wide watered shore,Swinging slow with solem roar.”
There was apparently an evening meeting about to be held, and we rejoiced we should be enabled to enter the courts of the Lord, a privilege we had been denied for some time. Our path to the town lay past several very pretty cottage residences, ornamented with shrubbery and flowers—thence, following the sound of the bell we found ourselves before a small meeting house. It happened fortunately to be the meeting which enjoyed the administration of the Rev. Mr. S——g, of the presbyterian persuasion, whom we found to be a very pleasing, intelligent, and pious man. We were very much gratified with his discourse, which we found very appropriate. He spoke of man as a traveller, the end of whose journey must certainly one day approach, and earnestly bade us to take thought for that event, as there were many there who ‘before the frost is spread over our prairie, maybe lying under its sod.’ He reminded us much of Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, for his similies were all drawn from rural objects—the sun, the clouds, the prairie, the river, and the scenery around him. We no longer wondered at the accounts we had received of the high religious and moral standing of the place, and the great amount of good done in it. This last year, twenty-three thousand dollars were contributed by the people of Peoria towards charitable and religious institutions. We walked home under a bright moon, our hearts much refreshed by all we had heard, and we were rejoiced the Lord had placed such a faithful servant in these fair prairies, to uphold his name.
July 9th.—While wandering along the shore this morning, we descried the smoke of our expected steamboat, and hastened back to the hotel to pack our trunks. It was the Home, from Peru to St. Louis, and we were to take passage in her for Alton, on the Mississippi. We bade adieu to sweet Peoria with regret. The remembrance of it will long ‘perfume our minds,’ as old Izaak Walton says. Its situation, its excellent society, and religious privileges, and its good schools, must certainly make it a desirable place of residence, or of trade. It is two hundred miles from St. Louis, and one hundred and seventy from Chicago. When in the saloon of the Home we were presented with a book in which to write our names, place of residence, whither bound, andour politics. While leaving this, our eyes fell upon a piece of pink satin, framed, which hung against the wall, upon which was printed the rules of the boat. Among other things it forbid ‘any gentleman to go to table without hiscoat, or any other garb to disturb the company. No gentleman must pencil-work or otherwise injure the furniture.’ (I suppose whittling was meant. Upon our lake boat we saw the boxes of merchandize and barrels on deck, fast disappearing under the whittling knife. A piece a foot long and two inches wide would be torn from the box and cut to pieces by a restless passenger.) Beside these, we were told ‘no gentleman was to lie down in a berth with his boots on, and none enter the ladies’ saloon without permission from them.’ We found in this boat, three indications of being near the south, liquors upon the table, gambling in the gentlemen’s cabin, and a black chambermaidslaveto the captain. Among the passengers, were a man with his wife and sons, unlike the most I had met, going west, but making a retrograde motion to the east. They were driven away they said by the fever and ague, from which they had been suffering ever since their removal west. Their yellow gaunt appearance fully testified to the truth of this. He had been a shop keeper in the State of New York, who experiencing some reverses, was persuaded to remove to this golden region by his wife, who was now no longer able to lead the village fashions. He bought a lot, and mill privilege, in an embryo town—their house was situated under the boughs of a forest impenetrable to the sunbeams, surrounded by decaying leaves, moist new soil, and a mill pond. The town’s people were too busily occupied in building banks and hotels, to dig wells, and drinking out of the marshy springs, of course all fell ill by turns. Their boy, they said, had been at ‘death’s door,’ and now, although better, was afflicted with anague cake, which they wished meto feel in his side. I am convinced a little prudence and knowledge, will keep many ‘healthy, wealthy, and wise,’ who, without it are easily discouraged, fall into difficulties, and wish to try a new place. We have met many upon the road, who have nearly equalled the old woman on the prairie, who had begun the world seven times.
The other female passenger was a young girl who had come down the river in the boat, her home being on the prairie, back of Peru. She was a pretty innocent country lassie about sixteen, travelling alone, on a visit to a brother living on the river, whose wife was ill and required her services. Her travelling dress was a muslin striped with pink; and her hat one of that description we call Dutch bonnets, made of pasteboard covered with pink glazed gingham. She was rejoiced to examine my wardrobe, and cut new patterns, as she lives far from the haunts of men and mantua-makers. My Mosaic brooch pleased her much, and she asked me if I had bought it of the pedlar who she heard had lately arrived in that part of the country with a lot of new goods, and whom she was eager to see. I was obliged to say I had not purchased it from that fashionable depositary. She then proposed to show me her clothes; mine being new to her, she supposed her’s must be new and desirable to me. At her request the chamber-maid drew from the state-room a huge chest of black walnut, which she opened, and, among other things, displayed a pretty straw bonnet trimmed with gay ribbons and flowers. That was her Sunday bonnet. She also drew forth a topaz pin which had reached here in a pedlar’s cart, and was a present to her by her brother. ‘This pin has lastedwonderfully,’ she said, ‘considering how much it has been borrowed. At every dance or party when I do not go, some of the girls borrow and wear it. It has been lent for ten miles around.’ This young lady had been brought when quite young, by her family, from Ohio, whence they emigrated here. They had all suffered much from the fever and ague, but were now acclimated, or rather had corrected the causes of their agues, and she had become fat and rosy. I have remarked in several instances, that the children born here, or brought here young, grow up strong and ruddy, and their parents suffer the most. It is only the first generation who lose their health, as the land improves and diseases vanish about their homes by the time their children are grown. This family live upon a large and productive farm which yields, among other things, according to her account, four hundred bushels of peaches. In the season of this delicious fruit her mother gives a peach feast, inviting all their friends and acquaintances, who, after eating as much as they like, carry away each a basket full. Her family sell several barrels of dried peaches every year.
Twelve miles below Peoria we stopped at the town of Pekin, built upon a bank elevated fifteen feet above the water during high tide; but now, all these places are much higher. The captain told us he should be here some time taking in merchandize, and we employed the interval in seeing the lions of the town. I told the little country girl our intention. ‘Lions!’ she said, ‘I guess you mean wolves; there are no lions in these parts.’
Pekin is a small place and only contains eight ornine hundred inhabitants, and five or six streets. The shops seemed well filled with goods, and presented a goodly show of tin, iron-ware, dry-goods, crockery, provisions, etc. I purchased a green gauze veil here and several small articles, all of which I found much more expensive than in our Atlantic shops, freight being high on the Mississippi. In paying for them I found a new currency here, my shillings and sixpences being transformed intobitsandpicsor picayunes. The Pekin Express lay upon the counter which we amused ourselves looking over while waiting for change. The person who kept the shop turned out to be the oldest inhabitant of the place, that important personage who, in a storm, always determines if there has been ever a greater one or no. He might very well be the oldest, as the town is but ten years in existence. ‘Pekin,’ he said, ‘would have been ere this far ahead of any town upon the river, were it not that there were two parties among the commissioners who were to lay it out; these pulling different ways the town was nearly lost between them. The rich country behind, and the river in front, had befriended them, and they soon expected to have their branch of the railroad finished to Mackinaw river, whose water power and timber bluffs were very valuable.’ We remarked as we walked, a large hotel nearly finished; a presbyterian, methodist, and several other meeting-houses; office of the ‘Tazewell Telegraph’; academy, and some dwellings. We lay here four hours with a hot sun reflecting from the sandy bank, impatiently watching the barrels of flour which seemed as they would never cease rolling from the large store-house upon the bank, down to our vessel. These barrels arefrom the steam flour mills, which turn out two hundred barrels a day. Beside these, we took in a hundred sacks of corn, and some other merchandize. The captain seemed well pleased with his morning’s work, saying he had astreak of luckthat day. Three miles below this he had another ‘streak.’ At the mouth of Mackinaw river scows were waiting him, loaded with bundles of laths and staves, and long dark boards, which I took for mahogany, but which proved to be black-walnut. The Mackinaw is a clear stream, having rich bottom land, bounded by bluffs covered with white oak and cedar. The prairies through which it flows, are rolling and tolerable land with several mill seats.
The Illinois looked beautiful this afternoon. Its glassy waters scarcely moved, and it seemed so content with its sweet resting place, and at the silent admiration of those stately trees, which were sending their cool flickering shadows over her and gazing down at loveliness, that it would fain linger upon its course, as some young languid beauty, conscious of a graceful position which is winning admiring glances from every beholder.
Among the trees, beside the usual elm, oak and maple, we observed several enormous wild cherry trees, nearly one hundred feet in height, and at least fifteen feet in circumference, and the paw paw, the coffee nut, the red ash, American nettle, a tall, slender tree, with pretty red berries, and many unknown to us, or to those around us. The islands in this river are small but covered with soft, luxurious herbage. The birds and wild fowl were out, enjoying themselves, chattering, pluming their wings, and visiting eachother from tree to tree. Among the wild fowl, we observed teal and brant, and wild ducks, skimming over the water, or wheeling in flocks over our heads. One, apparently in a spirit of daring, would set out to cross our path—leaving his little cove, he would glide with the utmost rapidity over the river in front of us, leaving a silver line on the smooth surface of the stream, and after we had passed, glide back, bobbing up and down upon the waves in our wake. When he arrived at home, what a quacking and chattering and fluttering was heard! In one little cove, or bayou, was a little island, covered with rich grass, and shaded from the sun by the dense grove whose branches met over it—this seemed to be quite a colony of ducks, who were going and coming in rapid but graceful evolutions from the main land. A young man who stood near us named the place Quackville, and declared when he returned home he would publish a map, and sell off the lots. We passed several towns to day, as Liverpool, Havanna, Beardstown—the former a small settlement, but which its inhabitants intend to make larger, as they have already a railroad in contemplation across the Mississippi. Beardstown is a place of some importance. It is a county town, and its commerce greater than any upon the river. Mechanics of all descriptions are to be found here, as bakers, shoe makers, tailors, blacksmiths, cabinet makers, silver smiths, carpenters, joiners, coopers, painters &c. &c. see Peck. There are also here steam flour mills, saw mills, breweries, distilleries, &c. A canal is projected here, to connect the Illinois with the Wabash, (which divides the state of Illinois from Indiana,) by means of the Sangamon and Vermillionforks. While passing these towns one is surprised at their rapid growth, for when Schoolcraft rowed his canoe up this river twenty years since, it was a wilderness only inhabited by Indians. Opposite Havanna, the Spoon river enters the Illinois. Its Indian name is Amequeon, which meansladle, and is much prettier than its present name. It is one hundred and forty miles in length, navigable most of the way, and capable of being cleared further. The soil is dry undulating prairie, with considerable timber—and some of it upon the forks of the Spoon is the richest in the state—its forks and tributaries affording good mill seats. It is in the military bounty land, which commences just above it, and terminates at the junction of the Illinois with the Mississippi, making a triangle of five million three hundred and sixty thousand acres, about ninety miles along the Illinois, and the base of the triangle, ninety miles across to the Mississippi, near Quincy. This is appropriated by Congress to the soldiers of the regular army in the war between the United States and Great Britain. Two thirds of this land is prairie, and the rest timbered, crossed by a variety of rivers and creeks. The soil is generally a black vegetable mould from fifteen to thirty inches deep. Much of the best of this land has been bought up by a company who have opened an office at Quincy, where they sell it from three to ten dollars an acre, while other parts are sold at the price government established for its lands all over the States, one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. Government has given to the State of Illinois every other section. Sangamon river comes gliding down over its pebbly floor, a pure transparent stream, between Liverpool and Havanna. It runs through Sangamon county, of whosefertility, beautiful scenery, crowded population, rich prairies, numerous streams, and valuable timber groves, we have heard such flourishing accounts. By the way, I can never get reconciled to the western custom of calling woods timber, woodland, or groves, or forest, timberland. My young country girl, Maria, in relating an interesting romantic event which had occurred in her region of country, instead of speaking of a ramble in the woods said ‘we had gone to walk in the timber.’ In this famed county is Springfield, the capital of the State. The Sangamon river is one hundred and eighty miles long, and navigable nearly to the capitol, seventy-five miles, by small steamboats. With a small expense it can be cleared. We do not see the Illinois in all its grandeur, as the water is low. It falls, our captain says, one and a half inches a day, and has fallen eight feet since June. It will arise in the autumn, and when its present channel is full overflows the bottom land to the bluffs. This makes the river shore, unless very elevated, rather unhealthy, and consequently uninhabited. Soon after passing the Sangamon, we stopped to take in wood, and we embraced the opportunity to take a sunset stroll in the forest. A small cottage embowered among woodpiles, inhabited by a woodman and his family, were the only signs of human life we saw. These sylvan solitudes however, are not without their denizens, for the birds were skipping from bough to bough, the turtle were romantically reclining upon the logs beside the water, the wild fowls, and the paroquets were chattering in concert with the mocking bird. There the squirrel also
“Sits partly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking.”
“Sits partly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking.”
“Sits partly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking.”
Here however in these pretty nooks he sits undisturbed, for no boys ‘with crooks and bags’ can molest his quiet haunts. We enjoyed the deep forest walk very much having been now so long cramped in a steamboat, and wandered along among the stately beech and graceful linden, the black walnut and locust, swung upon the festoons of the enormous vines which hung down from the trees, and breathed with much satisfaction the perfume from the dewy herbage, grape vine buds, and yellow jassamin which climbed the boughs around us. The steamboat bell recalled us to the shore in time to see a steamboat pass, being the second we had met this morning.
There is much travelling upon this river during the summer months. Our captain told us he had made fifty-eight trips last year from St. Louis to Peru, carrying ten thousand passengers. This seems a great number, but we are a travelling people, and with the emigrants going west, it may be true. I am chary of repeating things heard upon the road as I know my country people delight in quizzing travellers. I have had some awful examples of this lately, sufficient to make me cautious, in regard to certain tourists from abroad to this country; and when told any thing dubious, remember thethree miles of roast pig; thedrunken ladies of Boston; thepiano with pantaletsupon its legs; the canvass bags to hold specie in times of bank troubles, etc. etc. Pretty Maria’s travelling bonnet, which I described to you, also reminds me of the misconceptions to which travellers are liable, who take a hasty glance and go not to the best sources for information. As proof of the poverty of the country, low style of dress and manners, an European travellertells his readers the richest ladies wear hats of their own manufacture, made of pasteboard covered with calico or gingham. And so they do; but only to run in the garden, or to a neighbor in the county, for you know we all, when in the county, use these as garden hats, as they shelter the face so well from the sun. I wish you could transport yourself here at this moment, and seat yourself by me upon the hurricane deck, and see how perfectly the forest shore is reflected upon the quiet polished Illinois. This stream cannot be called a flowing one for it has scarcely any current, but reposes in its bed with the tranquility of a lake. Now it lies in evening’s deep shadow, while, as we look above, the topmost plumage is tipt with gold—this gradually disappears,—darkness succeeds, except where one struggling moon-beam, from the Indians Tibic geezis,night sun, streams down the long forest vista, and lies like a silver ribbon across the river. I always go to bed with the chickens while on board a steamboat, as a light attracts mosquetoes, and here river fog forbids us to sit out of doors—so good night.
July 10.—Off Meredosia. This is a thriving town, built upon one of those elevated terraces which occur frequently along the river as if on purpose to raise the settlements above the damp alluvion, and to give them a pretty effect. It is in a good situation to rise, as it is a sort of business port to Jacksonville, to which a railroad of twenty-three miles is in operation; and Morgan county, upon which it is situated, is a thickly peopled district, having good timbered lands, mill streams, quarries of lime and free stone; and is watered by many streams. Jacksonville is a large town where there are several churches, a court house, mills and shops. The Quincy and Danville railroad passes through Meredosia, to the Wabash river, two hundred and twenty miles. Through this river, communication is held with the lakes. Their exports are between two and three hundred thousand dollars, and imports five hundred thousand dollars. Here we took in several passengers. Six miles below Meredosia is Naples, a small collection of shops and dwellings, situated upon a high bank. Upon one house, larger than the rest, I read the name ‘Napoleon Coffee House.’ I looked around for Vesuvious, but saw it not, nor any other Neopolitan traces. The names upon this river are very ludicrous, and striking monuments of the want of taste in those who bestowed them. One would imagine, from reading my last letter, I had been travelling in seven league boats, or in a balloon, as I have touched at Peru, Pekin, Havanna, Liverpool, Naples, Brussels, Rome, (part in the night,) &c. While the Indian names are so pretty, why are they neglected for such worn out European designations. Peoria, and Illinois, and Ottowa are very pretty; Hennipen is very well, as given in honor of one of the early discoverers of this county from France, and it might be thought a debt of gratitude, but every pioneer has not so good a name, and if this custom is followed, it saddles us with such names as already abound, viz: Jo Davies’ County, Pike, Cook, Higgonbottom, Hancock, Buggsville, Toddtown, Dodgeville. Moreover, the Indians were the first explorers, and if any, they are entitled to this honor. To obviate this it has been proposed to take something local, but unless persons of taste are consulted, we shall hear of more Bigbonelicks, Bloodyruns, Mud Lakes or Crab Orchard’s. I wish Congress would take the matter in hand, and form a committee of nomanclature to name every new settlement.
We are constantly passing steamboats. In 1836, at Beardstown, there were four hundred and fifty arrivals and departures, and at Naples their account was the first year, 1828, nine; from March to June, 1832, one hundred and eight, and now, of course all these figures must be doubled. Among our passengers we have an old Kentucky woman, who has been living several years upon this river. She was so rejoiced to see a slave again, that soon she and Violette, our chambermaid, became quite intimate friends. She frequently borrowed her pipe to have a comfortable smoke out upon the guards, where, with Violette beside her, she would smoke and chat for hours. A lady on board, who had lately become a convert to temperance cause, was extremely offended at the sight of spirits upon the dining table. Her husband argued for their use upon the ground of frequent impure water, and fever and ague, from which the stomach is fortified. The wife, however, was not convinced; when, in the midst of a high argument, our old woman put her head in at the door, and taking out her pipe, after slowly puffing off her smoke, uttered this oracular sentence: ‘For my part, I think there are lots of gnats strained at, and lots of camels swallowed,’—and disappeared. The husband left the argument for the card table, whence he arose sometime after, grumbling at his losses, and galled by the discovery that the winner was a well known black legg, whose practicewas to live in steamboats during summer, to fleece such silly sheep as himself. In the winter he returned upon his laurels, to New Orleans or St. Louis, to revel upon his winnings.
This morning we passed one of those machines employed by government, during low water for the purpose of clearing away the sandbars. It is a large wooden ark, worked by steam. A great shovel takes up the mud, brings it up, and throws it into the scow at the other side which is emptied upon the shores. The State has appropriated $100,000 to improvements upon this river. There are several sandbars, and below Ottowa ledges of sandstone which, if removed, would render the navigation unimpeded at all seasons of the year quite to Ottowa, two hundred and ten miles above the mouth of the river. We stopped so often to take in freight and passengers, that we began to be fearful we should not reach the mouth of the river and behold its junction with the stately Mississippi before dark—however, ‘we came a good jog’ this morning, to use our old Kentucky lady’s phrase, and now after tea we are sitting upon the guards watching for it. We are continually passing streams which run into this river—Crooked creek, comes down about one hundred miles through a very fertile region of country with a soil of argillaceous mould from one to four feet deep.[20]Its banks are lined with oak, maple, hickory, black walnut and much other valuable timber. Bituminous coal, and free stone quarries are also found there. Apple creek, at whose mouth is a small settlement; Macoupin creek, its name taken from the Indian Maquapin, a water plant,whose smooth leaf floats upon the bayous and lakes in this region; its esculent root, after being baked under heated stones is a favorite food with the native tribes. There is a settlement upon this last named stream commenced in eighteen hundred and sixteen, which then was the most northern white settlement of Illinois. The population of the State four years after, in eighteen hundred and twenty, was fifty-five thousand two hundred and eleven, and now, eighteen hundred and forty, it is four hundred and twenty three thousand nine hundred and thirty four, a great increase in twenty years. We have now upon each hand, the two last counties which border the Illinois. Green, on the east, contains excellent land, well settled by eastern families, many from Vermont. It is one of the richest portions of land in the State, traversed by fine water courses and bounded by two large rivers,—containing beautiful prairies, and excellent timber. In the cliffs which border the Mississippi on this county, bituminous coal is found among the sandstone and limestone strata, and crystal springs flow from their sides. Calhoun county on our right is the southern point of the triangle containing the military bounty lands. The point where the Mississippi and Illinois meet is low prairie subjected to inundation and consequently unhealthy; coal has been found here, and the large trees are famous for their honey. As we were near the mouth of the river, and my little fellow voyager, Maria, had not yet landed, I asked her how far we were from her brother’s residence. She said she had been looking out for it, but every place had a different name from that of her brother. I recommended her to ask the captain; he sent her word wehad passed it twenty miles back. Poor Maria seemed overwhelmed with consternation. The town, we found upon enquiry, was in the interior, the passengers landing at an old tree upon the shore and we all now remembered a plain country-man, upon the bank who made numerous signs to the steamboat, flourishing his arms frantically. Maria with the rest supposed he was in jest, or a madman, but now remembered he was like her brother, who must have seen her and motioned her to stop. Maria had expected a town, and did not imagine that her stopping place. As our boat was so uncertain in its movements the poor man must have spent the day upon the shore, and was now doubtless very anxious about his young sister. There was nothing for her to do now but stop in the steamboat at St. Louis until its return trip. I felt sorry for the poor girl, only fifteen, and thus left to the tender mercy of the world. We spoke to the captain and chambermaid, who both promised to take charge of her and land her at her brothers when he returned next week. The afternoon is beautiful; we are peeping up the forest glades, as the channel runs near the shore, or inhaling the rich perfume which the summer breeze shakes out from the trees. Suddenly the forest is passed and we gaze over the low prairie which lies between the two rivers, bounded by a line of round green hills which range across the country. ‘The bluffs of the Mississippi!’ exclaimed my companion, ‘and we soon shall see its famous waters.’ We hastened up to the hurricane deck, and placed ourselves in a good situation for beholding the scenery; a little excited at the thought of looking upon the grand and celebrated stream. The Illinoisflowed as straight and still as a canal, about four hundred yards wide, we glided over its waters and soon found ourselves in a broad majestic stream which came rolling down between a range of bluffs; here, a mile broad, upon whose bosom some lonely islands stretched across from the mouth of the Illinois. The view was delightful upon each side; the fair plains of Missouri at our right, and upon the Illinois side, bold beautiful cliffs, or green cone like hills, covered with a soft carpet of verdure, sinking down upon the east side into lovely green dells. This style of hill is called by the French, Mamelle. In one of these pretty nooks, nestled at the foot of a bluff, is the town of Grafton, from whose balconies the inhabitants obtain a fine view up the Mississippi. This town is only a few years old, but expects soon to rival Alton, as most of the travelling from the interior to the Missouri towns opposite, is through it. It has already laid out upon paper a railroad to Springfield, the capitol. The rapid tide of the ‘father of waters,’ presented a great contrast to the languid Illinois. The color is brown, but of a different tint from the Illinois, being a dark coffee brown, but clear and sparkling. We looked a last farewell to the fair Illinois, upon whose banks, or on whose water we had travelled for four days and four nights, a distance of nearly four hundred and fifty miles, if we include the Des Plaines. The loveliness of the scenery all this distance merits the encomiums made upon it by the early French writers. This was a favorite river with the French, and La Salle, Charlevoix, and Marquette, describe the beauty of its shores in glowing terms.
The bluffs upon the Illinois shore, as we descend theMississippi, become more bare and precipitous, and have a waterworn appearance as if the water had once flowed along their summits. The regular stratification of the sandstone and limestone of these cliffs, present the appearance of mason work, crowning the heights with castellated resemblances, so that we might imagine we were passing beneath some mountain fastness, with its frowning walls, dungeon keep, and warder’s tower. Occasionally masses of white limestone are strewed along the shore, or grouped upon the green sloping bank, as if some large city had there arisen upon the river’s side. Turning a sharp angle of one of those bluffs we found ourselves before a large imposing looking town, built upon the bank of the river, which came sloping down from the bluffs behind. This we learned was Alton. While our crew were mooring our boat upon the steep bank, we gazed with great curiosity and interest upon this place, larger than any we had seen since leaving Detroit fourteen hundred miles behind. To the left the rocks were crowned by a large solid looking building which we were told was the penitentiary. In front was a row of high ware-houses made of limestone, filled with goods and men; while a mass of houses and steeples at our right were brightly reflecting the rays of the sinking sun. The shore presented a busy scene; men and carts and horses were transporting goods or luggage, or busily employed Macadamizing the bank—a great improvement upon the wharves we had passed. A large brick building at our right hand, with a white porch and steps, bearing the sign of ‘Alton House,’ being our place of destination, we directed our course towards it. The keeperof the house being absent, and it being no one’s business to take care of us, we spent some time wandering about the well furnished parlors, and staring at the waiters who were washing up the tea things in the dining-room, ere we could find any one to listen to our wants. We had left behind us the land where a living is only to be obtained by effort, and where the landlord and porters are on the alert in order to catch the stranger and take him in. Here, the cool American manner obtains; and although to the hungry, tired traveller rather annoying, yet, when we reflect upon the peace, and independence, and plenty, which produces this indifference, he will do as we did, throw himself upon a sofa, keep cool, and quietly await the arrival of somebody.
While amusing ourselves looking around at the furniture, we observed a portrait of, as we afterwards learned, the master of the house. As much as we had heard of the wild independence, thedevil-me-caremanners of our western brethren, we were here taken by surprise. He was without his coat—actually painted in his shirt sleeves—having upon his head an old straw hat! It was probably a warm day, or he was in too much of a hurry to put on his coat when he went to sit; and besides, it was nobody’s business but his own how he was dressed, or if he were dressed at all, and I suppose we may be thankful he retained his white robe ‘any way.’ Luxury, refinement, and conventual forms may be carried to excess; but I am not prepared to say the other extreme is better. A boarder in the house happening to stray in, we told our wants, and he kindly sent a waiter for the master of the house. He came instantly and with the greatestalacrity and wish to oblige, took us up stairs. All the rooms proving full or engaged, except one too small, we were directed to another house, which, after a short moonlight walk, we reached. The Eagle tavern, a favorite name for hotels, I think, in our country, was a comfortable house, although not pretending to the style and fashion of the Alton House. And now having finished these last few lines, while our supper was preparing, I hasten to bid you good-night.
Alton, July 11th.
My dear E.—Harassed by no compunctious visitings for the enormous package which I dismissed to you this morning through the Alton post-office, I have seated myself deliberately before my little desk to prepare you another. We have spent a delightful day among our friends here, and are very much pleased with the towns of Alton, for there are two of them. We are now, four o’clock, waiting for the steamboat to take us to St. Louis, and I employ the time in making a few sketches of the place for you. Alton is built as I told you, upon a sloping bank. This ground is very uneven, and upon some of the elevated portions are the public buildings. The churches here are well built and numerous, I think seven or eight; the streets wide and airy; places reserved for public squares, and several handsome private dwellings. The town has arisen rapidly, and from a small town in 1832, it has now fine streets, and houses, two hundred being built last year; merchants who transact business tothe amount of several hundred thousand dollars, and even half a million in some instances. Eight or ten steamboats are owned here, and two railroads in contemplation, and the great national road it is thought will be conducted through this place. There are several religious societies here, each having houses of worship; among them the baptist church is spoken of as being nicely fitted up in the interior; it is built of stone. Every convenience and comfort of life is at hand; coal in profusion in the vicinity of the town, which is sold very cheap; limestone, freestone, and water lime, besides other mineral productions abound. The markets are stored with wild game—deer, partridges, prairie hen, and water-fowl; fruits both wild and cultivated; various sorts of fish; corn, beef, pork, and vegetables of the finest order. Madison county, in which it stands, is one of the richest in the State, being most of it upon the American bottom. It contains seven hundred and ninety square miles, and the value of its productions, exclusive of capital invested, and cost of buildings, amounts to two millions three hundred and sixty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty-one dollars and eighty cents. Of bushels of wheat, they have raised one hundred and sixty-five thousand five hundred and twenty. Corn one million three hundred and four thousand three hundred and thirty-five bushels. Tobacco, eleven thousand two hundred and eighty pounds. Capital invested in manufactures, two hundred and ten thousand four hundred and thirty-five dollars. But I suppose you do not care for these details. If I should come here again in a few years, I expect to see Alton three times its size, for although it may not rival St. Louis, as the inhabitants imagine, it must be the most considerable place after it, west of Cincinnati. The Illinois brings to it the produce of the northern lakes and States—the Mississippi waft to its doors the exports of the west, and takes it over to the Ohio, and to the gulf of Mexico, from which last it is only four or five days distant. The interests of religion and education employ the benevolent inhabitants to a remarkable degree and many thousands are expended every year for the furtherance of these objects. Among these are Shurtliff College, Alton Theological Seminary, Alton Female Seminary. But enough of statistics, you will say, and I hasten to our own personal adventures. We ordered a carriage to-day to take us to Upper Alton, to visit our friends there, and were quite pleased to see as nice a coach and pair of horses as we could see in our own Broadway. After leaving the town we drove through some rich prairie land, interspersed with trees, through which we obtained fine views of the swift rolling Mississippi, and across it the verdant plains of Missouri, with green swelling hills beyond. A drive of two miles brought us to Upper Alton, a pretty small looking village, with spires and neat dwellings peeping through the trees. This place is very pleasantly situated upon an elevated plateau of ground about two miles from the lower town. Families here enjoy great advantages, in regard to the education of their children, as colleges and schools abound in its neighborhood. The society of this place is very superior, and its situation healthy.
We found our friends in a large picturesque house in the cottage style, surrounded by piazzas, whose pillars were wreathed with the clustering Michiganrose, and shaded by the graceful cotton wood, and pretty red bud and locust. Here indeed was a western paradise! upon the Mississippi banks we found realized, those visions so many have sighed after, a lodge in the vast wilderness, a secluded retreat from the haunts of men, where the confusions and follies of the world are only remembered as a troubled dream. A charming young family, and a well selected library, render this retirement most delightful. A seminary upon a new plan had been lately erected near their abode, and with a view of showing us every thing of interest around them, our friends drove us in their carriage through a pleasant road in an oak forest, to the Monticello Female Seminary. The building is of limestone of that region, four stories in height. It stands within a lawn ornamented with groups of trees, and a fine garden is laid out in the rear. This extensive establishment was founded by Benjamin Godfrey, Esq., a gentleman of Alton, who, to this benevolent purpose devoted a large share of his property. While a resident of the west, many examples had come before his eyes, of the miseries arising from the imperfect education of the young women who settle here. The dearth of servants rendered it necessary for the young wives around him to superintend, if not assist in household labor, and he saw how much better it was they should come prepared for these duties, and quite able to perform them, instead of wearing themselves out, and pining away over tasks, which, by being new, appear much more arduous than they are in reality. As the evil lay in a defective system of education, this generous individual at once saw how great a desideratum an institution would be, uniting useful with ornamentalaccomplishments. With a public spirit to be much applauded, Mr. Godfrey erected this spacious building, for educating ‘wives for the west.’ Eighty young ladies is the limited number, all to be over fourteen years of age. With the course of scientific study usual in female seminaries, the pupils are taught music, instructed in religion, and in varioushousehold duties. Among other lessons, they are taught to set a table, arrange their rooms, even sweep and scrub them; wash, starch and iron all their clothes. Some young ladies, who had been bred in idleness, or who had come from the indulgent homes of Alton, or luxurious mansions of St. Louis, where slaves await their nod, were very reluctant at first to undertake these menial employments; but the advantage which so good a school presented in its other departments, rendered their mothers deaf to their complaints. They were soon, however, broken in, and sing as merrily over their wash tubs, as the other pupils. As gain is not the object of its generous founder, the price of admission is placed low, still there are some, whose means are too straightened for even this, and these are allowed to pay for their instruction, by labor in the house. The eagerness to get admittance for young persons, is very great, and many thus receive instruction who are of high respectability, and are enabled to attend to the younger branches of the family, or even, if required, teach others. Some of these young persons are beneficiaries of a benevolent society, called the ‘Ladies’ Association for Educating Females.’ The object of this society is to ‘encourage and assist young females to qualify themselves for teaching, and to aid in supporting teachers in those placeswhere they cannot otherwise be sustained.’ Young females of all ages are selected from poor families and placed in schools, where they are watched over by these benevolent ladies, their tuition paid, and to each, every year, is addressed a circular letter of advice, with the donation of an appropriate, instructive book. When prepared, they are placed in situations where they can support themselves. Several have become missionaries, and at this school are two of the Cherokee tribe who are preparing to be teachers among their people. The great amount of good performed by these ladies entitle them to the hearty wishes of the benevolent and patriotic. The Rev. J. Spalding, in his address before the seventh annual meeting at Jacksonville, says: ‘Since its commencement it has aided one hundred and forty-seven young ladies in their preparation for usefulness and heaven, thirty-one of whom are professed followers of the Lamb.’ Now that I have thoroughly described the institution, we will leave the carriage and enter the house. We were shown into a neatly furnished parlor, where we were soon joined by the principal of Monticello, the Rev. Theron Baldwin, a gentleman of great information and piety. He kindly explained to us the principle upon which the seminary was conducted, and then offered to show us the house. Every thing was arranged with the greatest order and neatness. The dining, school, and recitation rooms, were large, clean and airy, and the bed rooms commodious. Upon the ground floor was a chapel fitted up with the beautiful black walnut of their woods; here divine service is performed, by the Rev. Mr. Baldwin, to the school and people of the neighborhood, who assemblethere every Sunday. You see the Illinois people are determined their people shall enjoy the blessings of education; and when we reflect how much the destiny of our nation depends upon the next generation, we cannot devote our time or our money to a better purpose, than furthering such institutions. We left the seminary, pleased with its arrangements, and wishing all success to the generous individual who originated the establishment. It is delightful to see wealth so well employed, to behold the ‘just steward’ thus ably disposing of his master’s property. Such disinterestedness shone out in bold relief from the selfish and reckless waste of fortune which we had beheld in our pilgrimage, like one of his own ‘oak islands,’ upon a sunny and treeless prairie.
Once more we experienced the pains of parting, and were forced to leave our friends that afternoon. We returned to our hotel where we are awaiting the arrival of our steamboat which is to take us to St. Louis. When I look around in this interesting country, and upon such towns as Alton, I wonder why our Atlantic cities are so full of people. How many young men do I know there, and indeed, whole families, who are struggling for a living, and denying themselves every comfort that their spare income may suffice, to give them a showy appearance in public; crammed into crowded boarding houses, narrow, hot, dusty streets, when there is here in this wide beautiful land, room, fresh air, fine scenery, employment, everything to be enjoyed, at half the expense they are forced to lay out among so many discomforts. The steamboat bell warns me to put up my note book, and I will resume when aboard.
We found ourselves in a small steam-boat, which makes regular trips between this town and St. Louis, twenty-five miles. Alton looked very pretty when we turned to bid a sorrowful adieu, and we regretted our time would not allow us to remain in this interesting place. We are now all eagerly looking out, for the giant Missouri, whose junction with the Mississippi is but two miles below Alton. At length the point is in view, all gather upon the guards, and bend our eyes towards the right shore,—we are now before the mouth and behold an extraordinary scene. The Missouri does not, as travellers tell us, come rushing, and bounding, and dashing along, striking the Mississippi with such a concussion that volumes of mist arise in the air,—we beheld nothing so wonderful—a broad stream rolled down between its verdant banks, rapidly, and very like a torrent, but in quite a decent and proper manner. Its color—alas, for our pellucid lakes—is a tint not often recognized by artists, but generally called gruel or soap-suds hue. It holds in solution such an extraordinary quantity of clay, that one wonders how the steamboat can force its way through it. Its rapid current is distinguished by the curls and little whirlpools among the mud. Where it meets the Mississippi is a small ridge of clay, and thick masses push themselves under the clear brown water, coloring it more and more with its impurity, until at last, the unhappy Mississippi, after struggling for some time, is completely lost in the clayey stream, as some pure young heart, striving against temptation, but lost at last. The streams continue separate for some miles below St. Louis, and there the river takes the Missouri character. I looked upthe vista of this grand stream, as we passed its mouth, with sentiments of awe. A mighty mass of water—it came rolling down nearly four thousand miles from its source in the wild recesses of the Rocky Mountains, bearing upon its bosom, not a fleet of Argosies, but materials for their construction in whole forests of gigantic trees.
Such an admirer of water as you know I am, you may be sure I regretted the soiling of my bright brunette Mississippi. To watch the foam of our vessel had been a favorite pastime, but alas, what a change from the diamond and emerald of our lakes, the topaz of the Illinois, the Zircon of the Mississippi to the soapsuds of the Missouri. I have called the Mississippi coffee color; it is now coffee-au-lait, and indignant must the father of waters be under so great an oppression. Several green islands adorn the stream, and the shores are spotted with a few houses, and now chimney, and roof, and tower, piled up against each other, proclaim a city, and we are soon in sight of the city of St. Louis. An old castellated Spanish mansion is the first relic we have seen of that brave Castilian race which once reigned over these broad lands. It is, I think, theirultima thula, their most northern point. The appearance of St. Louis, from the water, is very much like Albany, as it is built upon rising ground, consisting of two plateaus of land, the last elevated several feet above the other, but its water craft gave it quite a different character. We are used in our cities to behold the water front, bristling with masts, but here we saw steamboats alone, there being about seventy moored at the wharves, which gave a novel and western appearance, to the scene.The flat boat, is fast disappearing, and steamboats, are the only style of boat, with few exceptions, which we see; of these, five hundred and eighty-eight have been built upon the western waters.[21]The city of St. Louis stretches a mile along the elevated shore, and nearly the same distance back. We almost fancied ourselves in New York again, so great was the stir upon the wharf. The ware-houses, of brick or limestone, made of the rock upon which they stand, appeared filled with goods and customers, boxes and bales, carts and barrows were floating about, and every one seemed active except the negro slaves who were plodding about their work with the usual nonchalant gait of this merry but indolent nation. We missed our good wharves at home, and even the paved bank of Alton, for a shower had rendered the shore muddy. Surely some Yankee might contrive a more commodious landing; something that might rise and fall with the river, or a long pier. We drove to the Missouri House, where we arrived in time for tea, and at night were lulled to sleep by a Spanish guitar, and chattering of French voices from the shops andcafesin our neighborhood.
St. Louis, July 12.
My dear E.—The days we have spent here, we have been very busy, except Sunday, in examining every thing in and about this place. It is a very nice city, and one of much importance, has increased much lately, and will continue to increase. Its population is twenty-four thousand five hundred and fifty-five. In 1825 it was only six thousand. There are several good churches here, some of which, we attended to-day, it being Sunday. There is a pretty episcopal of the Gothic form, a baptist church, of brick, having a neat white porch in front—an unitarian, of plaster—a methodist, and a large cathedral belonging to the catholics. This is an odd picturesque building, and is one hundred and thirty-six feet by eighty-four broad, built of grey stone. You enter by a porch supported by four Doric columns. The body of the church is divided by columns, lighted by elegant chandaliers; the sacristy and altar are very handsome; the windows of painted glass; and there is in the church a finepainting of St. Louis, presented by Louis XVIII. The bells are from Normandy. We had penetrated two thousand miles in the wilderness of the west, and were glad to find we had not yet ‘travelled beyond the Sabbath.’
What nice resting spells these Sabbaths are! When whirled upon the stream of life, our attention occupied in avoiding the snags and sawyers and cross currents in our channel, how refreshing, how necessary is it for us to anchor for a little while, and look about, and consider our future course. The Sabbath is a precious anchor to the soul, giving it time to meditate upon its future career, and consult those charts which a kind heaven has sent to direct its route. The Sabbath is necessary to man, and was given in mercy. Physicians tell us rest is required for the machinery of man; that the brain and nerves, while forever upon the stretch will decay much sooner than if sometimes relaxed. It was the opinion of the great Wilberforce, that the suicide of Lord Londonderry and that of Sir Samuel Romilly was owing to their neglect of this day of rest. Speaking of the death of the former he says, ‘he was certainly deranged—the effect probably of continued wear and tear of the mind. But the strong impression of my mind is, that it is the effect of thenon-observance of the Sabbath, both as abstracting from politics, from the continual recurrence of the same reflections, and as correcting the false views of worldly things, and bringing them down to their own indistinctness. He really was the last man in the world who appeared likely to be carried away into the commission of such an act, so cool, so self possessed! It is very curiousto hear the newspapers speaking of incessant application to business, forgetting that by a weekly admission of a day of rest, which our Maker has graciously enjoined, our faculties would be preserved from the effects of this constant strain. I am strongly impressed with the recollection of your endeavors to prevail upon the lawyers to give up Sunday consultations in which poor Romilly would not concur. If he had suffered his mind to enjoy such occasional relaxations it is highly probable the strings would never have snapped, as they did, from over extension.’
July 13th.—This morning we took a coach and drove about to every thing worth seeing in the city. In the French part of the town, the streets are narrow and present quite a foreign and antique appearance. Here are several neat, white-washed steep roofed dwellings surrounded by piazzas, and occupied by the French part of the community. Main street, which corresponds with our Pearl street, runs parallel with the river, about a mile. It appears a very busy street and here one may obtain goods from all quarters of the world brought up from New Orleans,—and domestic wares from the country around. As you ascend from the river the streets are wider and better built, and the upper end of the city is laid out in wide streets fast filling up with handsome buildings, public and private, some of these last, surrounded by courts and adorned by trees. Here many eastern people dwell. A gentleman of the place, told us there had been nine hundred houses put up in the city this year, and from appearances I should think this a true estimate. There is a medical college in progress, and a large hotelnearly finished, which is said to be the largest hotel in the States. It is of red brick ornamented with white marble, and is altogether a handsome building. It is to be called the ‘St. Louis House.’ Several institutions are conducted by catholics, as the Convent of the Sacred Heart, and the University of St. Louis. In the library of the latter are nearly seven thousand volumes. The court house is of brick, with a circular portico supported by white columns. It stands in a large court in the centre of the city surrounded by an iron railing. We entered the hall, and ascending to the cupola, beheld a very delightful scene. The city is laid out as in a map below us—behind stretch the verdant prairies, in front the swift rolling Mississippi, and beyond it, the rich fields of the American bottoms in Illinois, and the white buildings of Illinois town opposite. While leaving the court house we were attracted by some advertisements upon the door, for the sale of slaves. We noticed one for the sale of ‘Theresa, a likely negro girl about twelve years of age.’ This was our first intimation we were in a land of slavery. You must not expect a dissertation upon slavery, for whatever my opinions are I shall keep them to myself, as I cannot mend or alter the state of things by my advise, nor is it a woman’s province to meddle in such high matters of State. However I might think, I certainly shall never speak in public upon the subject, as I have a good old friend, called St. Paul, and he in one of his letters says ‘It is a shame for a woman to speak in public,’ and ‘women should be keepers at home.’ It is true I am not a keeper at home just now, but I am travelling for health, and not to enlighten the people with my wisdom. The number of slaves in Missouri is forty eight thousand nine hundred and forty-one—its entire population is five hundred thousand. We visited a museum here, celebrated for its collection of organic remains, and we were surprised at the number and good preservation of these ‘medals of creation.’ The owner and keeper of this museum is Mr. Koch, a man of great enthusiasm upon the subject of paleantology. He had just returned from an expedition to the interior of Missouri from whence he had procured ninety weight of bones. Seeing our interest in these things he admitted us into an interior room which had the appearance of a charnel house, filled with bones and skeletons, which his servant was covering with preparation to preserve them from the effects of the air. Among them were gigantic remains of the mastodon and other huge animals, with teeth in excellent preservation. This museum contained many well preserved specimens, the most important of all was a huge animal with tusks, which he called missourium. He found also a head of an unknown animal which is certainly the largest quadruped whose remains have been discovered, having two horns each ten feet long, extending out horizontally on each side, making with the head, a length of twenty-five feet from the tip of one tusk to that of the other. The missourium, so called from the State in which it was found, was an animal much larger than the elephant, having tusks measuring four and a half feet in length, and one and a half in circumference near the head. These animals, with the antediluvial rein-deer, and horse of a large size, and myriads of broken bones, were found by Mr. Koch last May, near the sulphur springs, at LittleRock creek, twenty-two miles south of St. Louis. They were in a valley surrounded by high cliffs; this great deposit of bones forming an ‘osseous brescia, such as is found upon the east coast of the Mediterranean sea.’ ‘The lower strata upon whose surface these bones were deposited,’ says Mr. Koch in his written description which he gave us, ‘consists of a bluish sand resembling that which is often found upon the bottom of the Mississippi.’ These bones were cemented in a layer of gravel one and a half feet in thickness. The cement is calcareous, of a yellow grey color, containing saltpeter. It combines the bones and gravel together, so that it is with the greatest difficulty they can be separated; this layer is covered with a crust of chrystalization. The next strata is composed of small pieces of rock, and bones, broken, and in some instances ground to powder; these rocks are limestone, some of them weighing several tons. The next strata is blue clay from two to four feet in thickness, containing few bones; this clay is covered with broken rocks again, above which is the soil covered with trees. The whole mass makes a hill, sloping down from the rocky bluff, of thirty or forty feet, to the creek. Mr. Koch is of opinion these animals herded together, and sought shelter under these cliffs during some great convulsion of nature, and here met their death by being crushed by crumbling rocks, and covered with debris. Here we saw also the remains of that animal which I mentioned in one of my former letters as having been killed by human hands. Beneath it had been built a fire of wood, and around it were Indian axes, and large pieces of stone which had been thrown at itas if for the purpose of killing it. The animal had evidently been mired and killed by the inhabitants. This is a discovery of great importance, proving the mastodon, according to Indian tradition, had lived since the deluge. He showed us the elephant fish, or spoonbill, taken from a lake in Illinois, which was saturated with oil, although it had been cleaned and dried several years; also some live specimens of prairie animals—the wolverine, the prairie wolf, and the marmot or prairie dog, a small grey animal, famous for dwelling in the same nest with the prairie owl. You have heard of this prairie dog, whose villages extend over many acres in the prairies; they burrow under the ground, having, over the entrance to their hole, a small mound about two feet high and eighteen inches wide. Charles Lucien Bonaparte says of them, ‘It is a very odd circumstance that this owl and dog should share the same habitation, but so it is; and they present an example of unity which is quite pleasing.’ Another striking feature in the case of these animals is, they make the same cry,cheh,cheh, pronounced several times in rapid succession.
In the afternoon we strolled out to the suburbs of the town to see the Indian mounds, several of which are grouped together near the river bank, in the environs of the city. One of them is enclosed within the grounds of General Ashley, an ornament as rare as it is beautiful. Upon another is built the city waterworks. Upon one, about twenty feet high, a truncated cone, covered with soft grass, we seated ourselves, enjoying the silence, and watching the Mississippi’s flood rolling below us, while we mused upon the fate and fortunes of these ancient ‘mound builders.’ Thethermometer had stood at ninety-six all day, and we were glad to escape the heat and dust of the city. The sun had disappeared, but had left a soft amber radiance upon shore and river, and a purple haze upon the tops of the distant bluffs of Illinois. While gazing upon these monuments, and looking at the relics of a lost race which they contain, we try in vain to pierce the mists of time and answer the ‘who were they?’ which we ask ourselves. The vast valley between the Alleghany mountains, and the Rocky or Chippewayan chain, is studded with these antique mounds, from three feet to two hundred feet in height. They are generally in the form of a parallelogram except in the north-west where they take the shape of a cone, and by a late discovery, in Wisconsin, they are seen taking the figure of men and animals. There is a human effigy which is one hundred and twenty-five feet long; the others are rude resemblances to the buffalo, birds, alligator, etc.; these are all lying down upon the surface of the earth. Our Indian tribes each take the name of an animal, as fox, beaver, buffalo, etc., which custom might have also prevailed with the effigy builders. There are several grouped together here, around the one upon which we are sitting, and several upon the Illinois shore opposite. These last consist of small ones surrounding a larger one, which has a circumference of six hundred yards at the base, and is ninety feet in height; half way down the side is a step, or platform, cut into the hill about fifteen feet wide. It is called Monk’s hill, from the circumstance of its having been the residence of some monks of La Trappe, who, during the troubles of the revolution, fled to this country and built a house upon thismound. Here they kept a garden and supported themselves selling its produce at St. Louis, and by repairing clocks and watches. Their penances were very severe. What an illustration of Shakspeare, ‘patience on a monument,’ were these old men while meditating upon a tumulus in a howling wilderness. In vain we puzzle our brain as to the cause of these structures, and ask are they erected for mausoleums, watch towers, or temples? Those which have been opened contain human remains, ancient pottery, instruments of war, and are evidently places of sepulchre. Some of them contain rude earthen vases which had been filled with food for the use of the deceased. In vases discovered in an Indian sepulchre, near Steubenville, upon the Mingo Bottom, were bones of turkies, oppossums, &c., which had been placed there, that their friends might not want food upon their journey to the land of spirits. Stone pipes are also found, cut out of their sacred red clay of St. Peters, or steatite greenstone and limestone, some bearing resemblances to eagle’s or other bird’s heads. Arrow heads of flint or quartz, are also found with the former article, with idols, silver and copper rings, and rosaries. You have heard, I suppose, of the circle of mounds around which is built the town of Circleville, upon the Scioto river, of Ohio. Here was an ancient city, enclosed by a double wall of earth, with a ditch between the walls. The walls and ditch occupy nearly seventy feet, which gives thirty feet as the base of each wall, and ten for the width of the ditch. This circular town, or it may be fortification, was three hundred and fifty yards across. A square fort is near this, the walls of which were twenty feet wide, withoutany ditch. The fort is three hundred yards across, and is an exact square. The present town is laid out on these ancient and venerable works; the court house, built in the form of an octagon, stands in the centre of the circular fort, and occupies the spot once covered by a large and beautiful mound, but which was levelled to make room for the building. This forms the nucleus, around which runs acircular street, with a spacious common between the court house and street; on this street the principal taverns and stores are erected, and most of the business done. Four other streets run out of the circle, like radii from a centre. On the south side of this circle stands a conical hill, crowned with an artificial mound; a street has lately been opened across the mound, and in removing the earth, many skeletons were found in good preservation. A cranium of one of them was in my possession, and is a noble specimen of the race which once occupied these ancient walls. It has a high forehead, large and bold features, with all the phrenological marks of daring and bravery. Poor fellow, he died overwhelmed by numbers, as the fracture of the right parietal bone by a battle-axe, and five large stone arrows sticking in and about his bones still bear testimony.[22]
We must regret the destruction of these mounds, but in consideration of those which are allowed to remain undisturbed, and of the taste and fancy displayed by the citizens of Circleville, in laying out their town among them, we may forgive them. There is an ancient fortification near the junction of theriver Wisconsin with the Mississippi, in the angles of which mounds are erected. Upon the plantation of Walter Irvin, Esq., about ten miles from Natchez, and seven from the Mississippi, is another very singular group of fortifications and tumuli. If you desire my opinion, I should decidedly say they were erected over the slain in battle. Sometimes they contain but one body, perhaps of some great chieftain, whom the enemy’s archers have stricken; others are erected over several bodies, laid in layers, who, as fast as they have fallen, have been laid upon the mound, the earth placed over them, to receive another layer, until the tumulus is finished. Where they are grouped together, and where fortifications remain, the spot may have been the field of some great battle, whose slaughtered ranks required many mounds to cover them. We know it was the custom of eastern nations to erect mounds over the dead. The army of Alexander erected over the body of Demeratus a monument of earth eight cubits high and of vast circumference. Semiramis raised a mound to the memory of Ninus. We read of their erection by the Babylonians in their trenches, during sieges. Who were the people that erected these tumuli is wrapped in mystery which I shall not endeavor to penetrate, but refer you to Delafield’s Antiquities of America, who seems to have discovered much in the Mexican records, which throws light upon the subject. It is his opinion they were Sycthians who crossed to this country over Behring’s Straits, and these people were once the builders of the tower of Babel, and dwelt upon the plains of Shinar. When dispersed by the confusion of tongues, a portion of them wandered through Tartary to the ocean, and there crossed, and gradually passed down the North American continent, to Mexico and Peru. He deduces his evidence from, 1st. Philology—as three-fifths of the American dialects resemble the language of northern Asia, two-fifths the Coptics, and others the Sycthian; which last he traces in the tribes of South American, and the others to the North American savages: 2nd, Anatomy, which proves ‘there is much resemblance between the cranium of the race of the mounds and ancient Peru, with those of the modern Hindoos;’ mythology and hieroglyphics, architecture, manners and customs. The pyramids of Mexico, Peru, our country and the Sycthian nations, are the same, with little variation; some of earth, and others of stone. Mr. Delafield gives a plan of a building used as a receptacle of the remains of the princess Tzapotee in Mexico, which much resembles some of the ruins in Ohio. This is called Mignitlan, the place of desolation. In the article upon manners and customs, he relates the discovery of some shells of the pyrula perversa in a tumulus, which are used in Asia at religious ceremonies, and only found upon the coasts of Ilindostan. He traces these nations from the plains of Shinar to Tartary, where are numerous mounds, some in groups as they are found here, all containing bodies, with idols and implements of war, provisions, &c. In his interesting book, he exhibits the celebrated Aztec map, upon which by hieroglyphical figures their course is traced from Behring’s Straits to Mexico and Peru. Among other figures we see there a boat, rowed by a man, meaning crossing the water; a large tree, indicating their arrival from the icy regions to a fertile land; arushing river, telling of the Mississippi; and lastly, a Mexican plant, denotes their arrival in that land. Surrounding, and between these figures, are hieroglyphics signifying battles, towns built, sacrifices, councils, feasts, &c., and the number of years that the tribe remained in one place. He has sustained his hypothesis very ably, and yet we may say, with Schoolcraft, this is a race ‘whose origin, whose history and whose annihilation live only in conjecture.’ It is to be hoped the citizens of St. Louis are aware of the treasures enclosed within the city and will take measures for their preservation—the place would be capable of much ornament as a public garden. As our country becomes settled these interesting reliques will be destroyed if care be not taken to prevent it. Their number may give us an idea of the myriads who once roved over these plains, and we may say, while passing through the regions of the west, we are travelling over a ‘buried world.’ Beside these races, the Spanish, French, English, and Americans have lived and died here.
The city of St. Louis which is now so filled with Americans that it is rapidly assuming an American appearance, was once inhabited by French alone. The founder M. Auguste Choteau was alive when La Fayette visited here, but very aged. When young, enterprising, and ardent, he led the expedition which in seventeen hundred and sixty four ascended the river to found a city. He selected the site and with his own axe struck down the first tree; houses soon arose, and the limestone rocks around, as if by magic, were transformed into ware houses. As the French influence in the country was lost, the town stood stilluntil the American emigrants flowed in, and since then it has rapidly arisen to its present flourishing state, doing a business of six millions of dollars annually. St Louis is the capitol of the far west, and must continue to increase. It is the central point of the great valley of the Mississippi which extends two thousand five hundred miles in width from the Alleghany or Apalachian mountains to the Chipewayan; and three thousand miles in length. It is seated upon a noble river, by which it is only three days voyage to the Mexican gulf,—only eighteen miles from the mouth of the grand Missouri, thirty six from the great artery of Illinois and two hundred from the Ohio, through whose waters it has access to every portion of the States. Behind it is a noble region of land watered by magnificent rivers, abounding in metals, coal and stone quarries, covered by a rich soil, and blessed with a mild climate.
July 14th.—The morning being fine we were advised to take some of the fashionable drives, and accordingly sat out for the Prairie House. The citizens could not choose a pleasanter place to enjoy fresh air and verdure. As we left the city, we passed several handsome country seats, and then found ourselves in the prairie, which is of the species of land called ‘barren,’ covered with dwarf oak, crab apple, hazel bushes and prairie plums. The road wound through copses, and tufts of shrubbery for three miles when we arrived at the Prairie House, which is a pretty building, surrounded by shade trees and gardens. After cooling ourselves with ice creams, we re-entered the carriage and drove three miles furtherto the Sulpher Springs. Leaving the coach at the door of a large house, we descended a deep dell, shaded by weeping elms, immense oaks, and beeches, among which ran a brook ‘that to the sleepy woods all night singeth a quiet tune.’ The water was bright and sparkling, but very nauseous, and tasted to my companion like the Harrowgate waters. The walks around this stream are very pleasant, and must be quite refreshing to the tired and heated citizen. There is much company here during the summer. We took another road home, and passed through a fine prairie the commencement of the celebrated Florisante prairie which stretches from St Louis to the Missouri. Although trees were grouped upon the plains, we passed several spots,